


The Quickening

by ottermo



Series: Fandot Creativity [21]
Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Fantasy AU, Fusion - Realm of the Elderlings, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25599412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ottermo/pseuds/ottermo
Summary: The Liveship Gerti wakes at last.
Series: Fandot Creativity [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/398275
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	The Quickening

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in December for a tumblr 5 Years of Zurich celebration, so naturally now that Summer Christmas is over, I’m uploading it in my customary timely fashion! 
> 
> Borrowing the note I posted with it at the time:
> 
> This is from an AU I’ve been playing around with a bit recently, a fusion with the ‘Realm of the Elderlings’ books, in which Gerti is a liveship. All you really need to know is that a liveship comes to life after three members of the same family die aboard their deck. In this snippet, Arthur has just unwittingly delivered a death blow to a passenger who wouldn’t stop smoking his cigar.
> 
> Also, the First Officer might be magic. But that doesn’t come out very much here.

The wood rippled, shimmered, glowed, became flesh.

The four of them stood in absolute silence, overcome with awe, as the ship’s great figurehead turned towards the decks and looked at them, her eyes suddenly and terribly bright with life. She did not speak. Instead, she swept one arm toward the little group, the hand outstretched in greeting. Carolyn stepped forward, her head bowed, and placed her hand on the ship’s. Gently, the huge fingers closed around Carolyn’s, and the ship smiled.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Carolyn said, stunned into meekness by her ship’s glorious new appearance. “Mr Leeman, then… You were owned by his family?”

The ship smiled. “I was. For two generations, long ago. I was sold before my quickening could be completed, then stolen, then sold again.”

“To Gordon.”

“Yes. To Gordon. And he lead me to you.”

Arthur, who had until now been holding the steel bucket by which the unfortunate Mr Leeman had met his end, chose this moment to let it fall onto the deck, landing with a thud at his feet. Douglas glanced over at him, or tried to. He wasn’t sure if it was a product of the mysterious magic of a quickened liveship, or his own personal fascination, but it seemed impossible to drag his eyes away from the figurehead. She was just as beautiful as he’d known she would be. The chips and notches that had marked her face, the ones other sailors had mocked and called so ugly, now stood as noble as battle scars on a soldier. Her firm features had been softened by expression, but remained just as strong, just as determined, as they had always been.

“I’ve been dying to speak to you,” the ship went on. “All of you. My crew.”

Her entoxicating gaze flicked between them, settling first on Arthur, then Martin, and then Douglas, before returning to Carolyn. Even after her eyes left him, Douglas could feel the heady warmth of her affection. He had often heard how powerful the emotions of a quickened liveship could be, and as a user of the Skill he was more attuned than most to the touches of her magic. He wondered if she could sense it in him, the way his mind constantly quested outwards, seeking the connection he had longed for all these years, when all he could sense of her was a throbbing pulse of life beneath the surface of wizardwood.

“My crew,” repeated the ship. “At last, I can see you. I could sense you, before. I have seen you from the harbour, returning to me. But never this close. I’m usually facing the wrong way.”

A wry smile twisted her lips, and Douglas found himself smiling back. Had he been able to see the others, he’d have seen a similar mirror in Carolyn’s face, a beaming grin on Arthur’s, and the same gape of pure amazement that Martin had been sporting since the moment Mr Leeman had disappeared into the deck beneath their feet, and before their eyes.

“What are we to call you now?” asked Carolyn. “Your true name?”

The ship’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “My true name? What name could be more true than the one my crew chose for me?”

She released Carolyn’s hand, and cast her arm out to the side. A crewman any less familiar with the markings of the ship might have wondered, but Douglas knew for sure that she reached for the grooves of her painted name: Gertrude, picked out in grey along the outer rim.

“No, not Gertrude,” she said, smiling, and with a start Douglas realised that she had read his thought without leaving the faintest impression on his mind. “That was Gordon’s invention. Arthur, what is my name?”

The ship’s boy looked up at her, wide-eyed. “Gerti,” he said, “We call you Gerti.”

She smiled round at them all. “Yes, you do,” she said. “I am the Liveship Gerti. And I—”

She stopped, suddenly, and frowned. “I’m taking on water,” she said. “Waist deck. Port side.”

“Right,” said Carolyn, briskly, returning to herself immediately. “Come on, you three. Look lively.”

“Shouldn’t I stay up here?” Martin spluttered, “I’m the captain—”

“She knows full well who her captain is. But if we sink there won’t be anyone left to bow and scrape, will there?”

Douglas followed his three crewmates below deck, taking one last look at Gerti over his shoulder. She was still the same old ship, alright. Still springing leaks and dropping planks and taking rot, like as anything. But she was theirs, and she was alive. Quickened by magic older than time, yet young and new in the world. Their ship.

He turned back toward the task at hand, the smile still firmly in place.


End file.
